Greenock ease to victory in Scottish Cup

Edinburgh vs Greenock 1st XI
Citylets Scottish Cup
Sunday 14th May 2017

Scorecard       

Greenock safely negotiated their first round tie in this year's Citylets Scottish Cup with a comfortable five wicket win against Edinburgh CC through in the capital city on Sunday afternoon.

The home side won the toss and opted to bat first. Openers Hassan and Butt made a brisk start and had scored 53 runs when Louis Ware took a return catch off his own bowling to dismiss M Butt for 27. Just one run and two balls later and Ware struck again with new batsman Hussain out to a catch by Chirag Pandher.

Greenock made a double bowling change after the twelfth over and it paid immediate dividends when a further three wickets fell in the space of just eight balls. Firstly, Sam Sanghera trapped opener Hassan LBW for 26 with the score on 75 and then Kyle Scrimegour made two further breakthroughs by bowling both Parvez and M.S. Butt to put Edinburgh on 76 for the loss of five wickets.

Fortunately for Edinburgh, number four batsman Ashraf was in good form. He held the home side's innings together and along with some support from the lower order, he took his side's total to 163 before the last wicket fell in just the 30th over. Ashraf was not out 47.

The last five Edinburgh wickets were picked up by Neil Flack (2), Greg McDougall and Sam Sanghera plus a run out.

Greenock's reply almost got off to a poor start early on, but a couple of missed chances by the Edinburgh side's fielders allowed the Glenpark opening batsmen to get settled in and they made the home side pay for their lack of catching ability.

A century partnership between Neil Flack and Julien Hulbert put Greenock firmly in control of the match. Flack was first out having scored 66 caught by Shabbir from the bowling of Ashraf and thereafter Greenock progressed steadily to the target which had been set.

Hulbert, who had batted with care while Flack played a more attacking role, was the second wicket to fall bowled by Ahmed having contributed 26 runs. Kyle Scrimegour scored a fairly swift 22 runs before being caught by Hussain from the bowling of Shabbir with the score on 138 for 3 wickets in the 27th over.

The remaining twenty six runs were duly scored, but two further wickets went down as Louis Ware was caught and bowled by Butt for 10 and Chirag Pandher scored 8 runs, including a massive six over long-on, before being caught by Ali from the bowling of Parvez.

Shailesh Prabhu was 11 not out when Greenock reached their target in the 35th over.

Next up in the Citylets Scottish Cup for Greenock is a second round tie on 28th May away to Drumpellier who beat Weirs by just nine runs in a very closely contested match at Langloan, Coatbridge.